Confused by new CG type

[Weps]

So we've got a new CG setup being introduced here:

New Community Goal type. Future Community goals may require Commanders to destroy specific power-aligned ships within Power Conflict Zones, these will take place across multiple systems and may help to shape the galaxy.

And the first example in the form of the Duval - Archer - Yong-Rui war. It consists of 3 regular combat CGs where Duval is mentioned being on the defending side and the other two are on the attacking side.

The current CG descriptions and the completion criteria don't make any sense to me. If the winning criteria is the same as in the previous multi-CG setups (whichever higher contribution), then the defending side is predetermined to win, simply because of the math. The contributions of the attacking side are simply split in half, between the other two CGs.

In fact if you check out Inara right now, you can see how perfectly symmetrical the whole thing is: on the attacking side ~460 participants (cumulated) with ~680M+690M contributions vs. on the defending side ~480 participants with ~1200M contributions. It's neck and neck. It would be a great moment of E: D storytelling and a way to get players riled up.

But the CG descriptions say nothing about the attacking side contributions being added up somewhere. As if the two attackers would be competing with one another. But the enemy of each attacker is mentioned by name: Duval. So is it a competition or not? Am I mission something super obvious here?

If the winning criteria is simply the individual contribution per single CG, then it doesn't get more rigged than that. It's like saying the Axis won WWII because they inflicted overall more Allied losses, than each of the Allies taken separately....

 

[PilotB]

It is being held over multiple systems you're likely not in a situation where there is only 1 option for winner. Each system can have it's own narrative result.

 

[Weps]

It is being held over multiple systems you're likely not in a situation where there is only 1 option for winner. Each system can have it's own narrative result.

That's even more confusing... where does it say that?

So you're saying... 6 systems, 6 winning events? A reward scenario could be 6 x 40K = 240K merits for Duval, or another one could be 2 x 40K = 80K merits for each of the 3 powers? Please elaborate.

 

[PilotB]

Features of Note

• New Community Goal type. Future Community goals may require Commanders to destroy specific power-aligned ships within Power Conflict Zones, these will take place across multiple systems and may help to shape the galaxy.

You'll get 1 payout and can probably only support 1 faction but there's multiple systems up for grabs so results can be fuzzy

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The current CG descriptions and the completion criteria don't make any sense to me. If the winning criteria is the same as in the previous multi-CG setups (whichever higher contribution), then the defending side is predetermined to win, simply because of the math. The contributions of the attacking side are simply split in half, between the other two CGs.

In fact if you check out Inara right now, you can see how perfectly symmetrical the whole thing is: on the attacking side ~460 participants (cumulated) with ~680M+690M contributions vs. on the defending side ~480 participants with ~1200M contributions. It's neck and neck. It would be a great moment of E: D storytelling and a way to get players riled up.

That's pure luck, though. If Frontier held a CG with Delaine (defending) versus ALD, Archer and Mahon (attacking) the attackers would be split three ways and all of them individually would still be higher than Delaine is.

If the CG had had Duval + Archer attacking LYR (in long-delayed revenge for Sirius' behaviour during the first Fed-Imp war?) then Duval would likely still be winning.

(And that apparently close ratio probably won't hold for long anyway - a few hours ago it was only 5:4:4 in favour of Duval, so combining Archer+LYR would have looked like a walkover and the three-way fight looked closest. A few hours before that, LYR was actually leading with Duval lagging in third. In another few hours it might be 3:1:1 in favour of Duval and combining Archer+LYR would make no difference to the end result)

Ultimately to get an exciting CG in terms of a tense finish involves so much luck that Frontier probably can't do it deliberately. For now Frontier haven't held enough power-vs-power CGs to get an idea of where the neutrals (which is most people) will shake out in each matchup.

But the CG descriptions say nothing about the attacking side contributions being added up somewhere. As if the two attackers would be competing with one another. But the enemy of each attacker is mentioned by name: Duval. So is it a competition or not? Am I mission something super obvious here?

I think the main thing you're missing is how little difference it makes who "wins" the CG, in a way.

All individual rewards except those available only to specific Power pledges don't depend on who wins - you get 2 frags, +2 more for top 75%, whether your side wins, comes 2nd, or comes 3rd.

You get a bonus cosmetic+rank reward if your personal power wins. But if it was only LYR vs Duval, then Archer pledges wouldn't benefit at all in that respect from either Duval or LYR winning, so not getting the cosmetic now or not getting the cosmetic because like me they don't have a Power in the fight to start with makes no difference. And there's no guarantee that all of the people currently fighting for Archer would fight for LYR if it was a two-way matchup, either, so it might not end up close in that case anyway.

There's no actual consequence for Powerplay defined for the CG (just as there wasn't for any of the previous ones) - it's just a matter of what merits are put in by which players in the course of the CG competition and other activities around that in the same systems. Despite winning the CG (assuming she continues to do so), Duval is likely to lose control of at least some of the six affected systems over the next two weeks - Santy is already critically damaged and will be lost without a miracle and Gondul isn't likely to last to the weekend before it ends up in the same state. It's not even going to be close, there - because pretty much all of the people supporting LYR or Archer will be undermining, but only Duval-pledged Duval CG supporters can reinforce. In that respect, it's 11:1 versus Duval...

So with "winning" being so consequence-free (entirely so for ~75% of participants) and what consequences it has being largely independent of what happens in Powerplay itself, it doesn't matter too much how the winner is calculated.

 

[Weps]

That's pure luck, though. If Frontier held a CG with Delaine (defending) versus ALD, Archer and Mahon (attacking) the attackers would be split three ways and all of them individually would still be higher than Delaine is.

I believed that the setup of CGs is done with some minimal logic behind it, and not by just flinging suction cup elastic rubber products at a picker wheel across the room in FDEV HQ. In the case of the recent Delaine CGs I honestly thought, that they crunched the numbers but just so happened to grossly overestimate anti-imperial sentiment within the playerbase.

Hey, maybe I'm just too naive...

So with "winning" being so consequence-free (entirely so for ~75% of participants) and what consequences it has being largely independent of what happens in Powerplay itself, it doesn't matter too much how the winner is calculated.

Again naivety... Thinking that putting winning conditions in the rewards is accompanied by some chance of a fair fight..

CGs used to be about putting some agency in the players' hands, albeit insignificant. If the whole argument is that it doesn't matter anyway, then what's the point of CGs. They become just a pretext of gifting OP FOMO modules to players.

If that's the case, then we'll do what we do every week, Pinky: grab our 400 free ARX, make 75%, then go play other games because apparently E: D cannot captivate us for more than 20 minutes anymore. Sad.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I believed that the setup of CGs is done with some minimal logic behind it, and not by just flinging suction cup elastic rubber products at a picker wheel across the room in FDEV HQ. In the case of the recent Delaine CGs I honestly thought, that they crunched the numbers but just so happened to grossly overestimate anti-imperial sentiment within the playerbase.

It's been a fairly long time since they've had much in the way of CGs at all, and even longer before some of the Powers specifically have had a CG based on them. There's going to need to be some calibration, at least, before they can reliably put together sufficiently weird combinations that they actually come out close to level.

Again naivety... Thinking that putting winning conditions in the rewards is accompanied by some chance of a fair fight..

It's a tricky one to balance, especially with the requirement for a suspenseful fight of getting way closer than say 3:2, which is already way closer than most opposed CGs get. Archer vs Patreus was a roughly 5:2 win for Archer and most other Fed vs Imp CGs, historically, have been won by the Federation. I think there have been just two exceptions, and one of those was so poorly attended by both sides as to barely count.

So Archer vs Duval looks like it'd be too clearly a win for the Federation to be a "fair fight". Drawing some of both of their support onto a third party at least flips things around a bit and gives a chance of something more interesting - sure, it's easy to say now that an Archer+LYR vs Duval setup would have worked better - but that would have been a tough guess to make based on historic evidence.

I certainly don't have a model which can confidently predict even just for 2-way matchups the winner outside the obvious cases. This is LYR's first ever competitive outing against anyone who isn't Antal or Kaine, Duval's first ever competitive outing against a non-Imperial, the first three-way competition which isn't Fed+Imp+Alliance (all of which have gone Fed > Imp >>> Alliance). I don't think Frontier knew it was going to turn out this way in advance, and I don't think any player can honestly [1] claim that the current ratios are obviously how it was going to go just based on the names of the sides either.

[1] If you'd made me make a call right at the start before anyone started shooting, I'd have gone Archer > Duval as a seemingly reasonably safe bet, and not been at all sure whether LYR would have been 2nd or 3rd but expected it to be close either way. I would have been, of course, completely wrong about that. Ultimately beyond the really obvious cases these aren't all that predictable.

CGs used to be about putting some agency in the players' hands, albeit insignificant. If the whole argument is that it doesn't matter anyway, then what's the point of CGs. They become just a pretext of gifting OP FOMO modules to players.

Ultimately pretty much all of the common former purposes of CGs are obsolete, yes.
- most of the really popular CGs in the past were ones which built systems, stations, etc. We have Colonisation which does that much faster and more efficiently.
- the Power vs Power conflict is generally represented better with Powerplay (flawed as that still is) which covers the galactic scope better
- there isn't really a "plot" to speak of which players could have token agency in right now

There's still not much other than a CG for getting lots of people into the same system(s), though, and the new purpose of this specific CG type of encouraging players to go on the attack in Powerplay (versus a Power which historically essentially no-one attacks, too) is an interesting new tool.

 

[SlickPBW]

is anyone else not getting the cz scenarios to start? I've tried a few times with no luck. also, if I just start shooting the opposing side, I am getting no combat bonds for kills. What gives?

 

[forbiddenlake]

If you're pledged to either side, you automatically get put on that side. If you're not pledged to either, then you can just start shooting.

As a non-pledged, the display is kind of bugged. No popups for bonds in the UI nor the journal. No UI for the PPCZ.

Kills still count. Check the mission board, not the transactions panel.

 

[SlickPBW]

If you're pledged to either side, you automatically get put on that side. If you're not pledged to either, then you can just start shooting.

As a non-pledged, the display is kind of bugged. No popups for bonds in the UI nor the journal. No UI for the PPCZ.

Kills still count. Check the mission board, not the transactions panel.

not even in the transactions tab? what a joke. but thanks for clarifying.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

not even in the transactions tab? what a joke. but thanks for clarifying.

The bonds do show up in the transaction panel and are a measure for your contribution. The CG display in the transaction panel is, as always, slow and unreliable, and your actual progress is, as always, best ckecked in the station menu.

Be aware of the caveat written in the pinned post - contributions are updated roughly every five minutes, not in realtime.

 

[SlickPBW]

The bonds do show up in the transaction panel and are a measure for your contribution. The CG display in the transaction panel is, as always, slow and unreliable, and your actual progress is, as always, best ckecked in the station menu.

Be aware of the caveat written in the pinned post - contributions are updated roughly every five minutes, not in realtime.

only sort of. They show up as Pilots' Federation bonds, not for any particular PP faction, so in my case they mingled with an existing entry in my transactions tab and I didn't notice them until later. I would think that PP CZ bonds would show up differently since this is a new type of CZ, but I guess that isn't the case.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

only sort of. They show up as Pilots' Federation bonds, not for any particular PP faction, so in my case they mingled with an existing entry in my transactions tab and I didn't notice them until later. I would think that PP CZ bonds would show up differently since this is a new type of CZ, but I guess that isn't the case.

well they are still an indicator if you manage to remember by how much the funny number goes up. I was also surprised that the bonds were from the PF though. What can you do, eh.

 

[SlickPBW]

The issue is that you don't get all the other perks of having the cz running. I killed enemy war correspondents but didn't notice additional payout; maybe it was included in the bonds for the kill. I have no idea if there are other cz mini-goals like Enemy Captains, enemy Spec Ops, or announcements of mini goals, etc. Also, there's no progress indicator. I have no idea if the cz runs normally if a player is aligned to one of the conflicting powers, but like regular cz's for minor factions, I shouldn't have to be aligned with either power to get the cz scenario to run. Ironically, no PP merits are awarded for killing PP enemy ships in these PP cz's. I guess they didn't want the salt from players who are not aligned to any power who wanted to participate in a PP CG. It's funny to me that FD were so proud to announce this as a new version of a cz. Let's face it, they just did a poor job at rubber stamping the old cz template into a "new type" of cz.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

The issue is that you don't get all the other perks of having the cz running. I killed enemy war correspondents but didn't notice additional payout; maybe it was included in the bonds for the kill. I have no idea if there are other cz mini-goals like Enemy Captains, enemy Spec Ops, or announcements of mini goals, etc. Also, there's no progress indicator. I have no idea if the cz runs normally if a player is aligned to one of the conflicting powers, but like regular cz's for minor factions, I shouldn't have to be aligned with either power to get the cz scenario to run. Ironically, no PP merits are awarded for killing PP enemy ships in these PP cz's. I guess they didn't want the salt from players who are not aligned to any power who wanted to participate in a PP CG. It's funny to me that FD were so proud to announce this as a new version of a cz. Let's face it, they just did a poor job at rubber stamping the old cz template into a "new type" of cz.

I did kill multple wings of Spec Ops, so they do show up. Enemy captains only show in high CZs, and as far as I am aware, all CG CZs are medium. For the Spec Ops, what do they give, 50k? I don't know if I got them, but 50k is too little to notice amongst the bonds I got. I usually accrued around a million to a million and a half between docking for rearming, this is when I checked.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Ironically, no PP merits are awarded for killing PP enemy ships in these PP cz's. I guess they didn't want the salt from players who are not aligned to any power who wanted to participate in a PP CG

You get merits in the normal circumstances you would for a Powerplay kill.
- if you're pledged to Duval, killing the attackers as a Reinforcement action
- if you're not pledged to Duval, killing the defenders as an Undermining action
Got myself most of a rank with a couple of outings as a Kaine pledge helping out Archer's forces

For the Spec Ops, what do they give, 50k?

Haven't checked that. Spec Ops do give about double the merits of most of the others, which is nice. (Of course you only get merits if you're either a Duval supporter defending, or any other power attacking Duval.)

Interestingly the PPCZ enemies seem a lot less reinforced than the ones in a BGS medium CZ, which makes it a bit more dynamic in terms of their ability to destroy each other without your direct assistance and makes the ammunition last longer. The Spec Ops Asps seem particularly weak-hulled compared with their BGS equivalents while still not exactly being paper ships.

 

[Weps]

Looking now at Gondul, it seems it's not even possible to flip the system within PP, since the only fortifications in its range are imperial. So it will just flip back to AD once the CG is over...

The only way it would change hands would be if more ALD supporters join the LYR side in the CG / more effort is made by ALD on the LYR side? Do I understand this correctly? In which case... why choose Gondul for the CG? What was the point of this whole charade? To spark some friction between imperial factions? I honestly don't get it....

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I think ALD supporters on the Duval side shooting LYR ships should also be Acquiring the system for ALD.

But yes, while Archer's attacks were on systems on the Archer-Duval border ... LYR's attacks were just oddly placed.

 

[Weps]

I think ALD supporters on the Duval side shooting LYR ships should also be Acquiring the system for ALD.

Right... I didn't realise power kills in acquisition means any enemy power, not just other powers acquiring.